My name is Nick, and I am an Assistant Professor at a large American university where I study video games and gaming culture. Along with some colleagues of mine in the Netherlands, we are looking to recruit Diablo players to participate in an online panel study about their experiences playing Diablo III, which launches on Tuesday, May 15.

All study participation is completed online using a secure server. All data we collect is completely anonymous (we not ask for any gamers’ personal information) and only for academic usage – we are not associated with any industry or other private organization. Some more specifics about the study (this is cut and paste from the survey’s main page: https://vuass.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_2n6YqrgNg144blO)

*For this panel, we will ask you to complete an initial survey now followed by a series of surveys for the next six (6) weeks. These weekly surveys are quite short (less than five minutes) and will ask you questions about your playing of Diablo III.
*For today, we have a series of questions about your experiences with the Diablo video game franchise as well as general questions about your video game play experience. This survey should take no more than 15 minutes!
*At the end, you will provide us your e-mail address so that we can contact you with our weekly follow-up surveys on your Diablo III gameplay.
*Each week you complete a survey, your email will be entered into a drawing at the end of the study to win one of four Amazon gift cards valued at 50 DOLLARS. So the longer you participate, the more chances you have to win a card!

We are hoping that you might be interested in participating, or perhaps passing the study link on to somebody else who is. To be eligible, you just need to be a Diablo III player and be able to complete the first survey before the end of the day on Sunday, May 13 (using the survey link above).

As video game scholars, it is incredibly important to us that we are able to reach out to true gamers to get your opinions of the games that you play. Please consider the invitation, and if you have further questions you can reach me best at bowmanspartan@gmail.com

I also love the fact that you think I am going to disclose the intent of the study in a post asking for recruits for the study, poisoning the well. Scientific method! Demand Characteristics! WTF ARE THEY? Martin Orne is rolling in his grave right about now.

Secondly, there has to be at least some value to a course of study. Look at what classifying Business Administration as a legitimate field of study has done to both our economy, and our sad-sack modern higher education system.

I don’t play video games (last one I played was Pong, which must have been in the late 70s or early 80s), but I wish your friend luck in finding volunteers.

In other news, the CBS Evening News tonight had me checking the channel to be sure I wasn’t watching Colbert or SNL or something. Scott Pelley was talking to the CBS political director, John Dickerson, about Mittens’ claim to have saved the auto industry. Pelley said something like “is it true that Romney deserves credit for saving the auto industry?”. And Dickerson began his answer by saying, “Well, if by credit, you mean he actually did anything, no…” (Not an exact quote but very close). John and I just looked at each other and just cracked up and missed whatever else he said. We didn’t stop laughing for a good five minutes. Oh, the accidental truths that come out of the Villagers’ mouths when they don’t realize it.

Research conducted during the development of your program to help you decide on and describe your target audience, understand the factors which influence their behavior, and determine the best ways to reach them. It looks at behaviors, attitudes and practices of target groups, involves exploring behavioral determinants, and uses a myriad of methods to collect data. Formative research may be used to complement existing epidemiological and behavioral data to assist in program planning and design.

@gaz: There really are a lot of valid cognitive issues to research in gaming, as well as sociological issues, particularly in online and massively multi-player settings.

I wonder how that would dovetail with the research being done on the effects of the internet, social media and the pervasiveness of 24/7 internet connection on cognitive development. So from that standpoint, it does seem to have some value.

And apparently, my first post underscored Poe’s law. The cheetos and beer thing was apparently not enough to broadcast my snark.

It was fun to watch everyone jump on the ZOMG FU bandwagon for suggesting that maybe this is a little frivolous.

Actually Cathy, prejudices aside, a serious gamer is probably no worse a mate than a serious (insert hobby) fan and how well the marriage works it more or less is determined in large part by how many similar interests that the gamer shares with his “mate”. Someone obsessed with politics married to someone who can’t stand them might have problems for instance.

For example, my wife loves video games almost as much as I do. We’re both volunteer moderators at Gamespot. Our mutual love of gaming is something that we can talk about and brings us closer together and a part of what brought us together in the first place. (In other words, we’re both geeks.)

John:

If there’s something that I can do to help, please let me know. As I said, both my wife and I volunteer as forum moderators at one of the more prominent gaming communities out there.

If your friend is interested, we can probably nudge the local community manager and see if we can get your friend some sort of dispensation to solicit volunteers from our community.

If interested, please let me know and we can figure out what credentials your friend would need to provide to get our community manager onboard.

@David Koch: I have not, and I’m not asking that little fucker for anything.

Apparently, to be reinstated, I would have to out someone, reprint Meteor Blades’ private email, invade Black Kos for weeks, accuse Deoliver of being an exterminationalist, get paid to blog at DKos by Jane Hamsher but not disclose it for months, use my private “health care” email accounts to direct my acolytes to HR/uprate/ask that people be banned, and then explicitly violate an explicit personal directive communicated to me by Markos publicly and directly.

It’s voluntary. It’s legit. It’s freaking *research*. If you don’t want to participate, fine. But since you lack any sort of knowledge about the goals or aims of this research, perhaps you should just leave it there rather than shitting all over the concept of sociological research in general?

Harvey Pekar: What movie could be worth driving 260 miles round trip for?
Toby Radloff: It’s a new film called Revenge of the Nerds. It’s about a group of nerd college students who are being picked on all the time by the jocks. So they decide to take revenge.
Harvey Pekar: So what you’re saying is, you identify with those nerds.
Toby Radloff: Yes. I consider myself a nerd. And this movie has uplifted me. There’s this one scene, where a nerd grabs the microphone during a pep rally and announces that he is a nerd and that he is proud of it and stands up for the rights of other nerds.
Harvey Pekar: Right on.
Toby Radloff: Then he asks all the kids at the pep rally who think they are nerds to come forward, so nearly everybody in the place does. That’s the way the movie ends.
Harvey Pekar: Uhhmmm, so the nerds won, huh?
Toby Radloff: Yes.
Harvey Pekar: All right. Wow, well you know, you got this movie and I’m getting hitched. We both had a good month, huh?
Toby Radloff: Right.

Good grief, what a shitload of butthurt on this thread. I too lol’d at the idea of studying video games at the graduate level, regardless of whatever technical aspects there are to this study. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy doing the study is down-to-earth enough to see the humor in it himself. But no, everyone has to immediately jump all over gaz with ZOMG HOW DARE U LAFF THIS IS SERIOUS U R TEH SUXX0RZ. Jeezus Christ. Go have a beer or something and settle down.

It’s voluntary. It’s legit. It’s freaking research. If you don’t want to participate, fine. But since you lack any sort of knowledge about the goals or aims of this research, perhaps you should just leave it there rather than shitting all over the concept of sociological research in general?

Video games are a mainstream, and growing, medium now, despite their rather nerdy and stereotypical origins. Conducting a sociological or technical study on them is no more silly than conducting one on the movie industry.

@Gordon, The Big Express Engine: My lan party buds here are all about the local brews. I think graduation from Mountain Dew to Scullers IPA happens sometime in their early twenties, but I’m only venturing a guess. =)

@Jim C.: I suppose you are correct that it doesn’t have to be overindulging gamers who can make bad mates but overindulging in anything can, if the mate isn’t also a participant or somehow ok with it. I have a nephew who plays games around the clock, staying up all night and then sleeping all day. That would be a nightmare partner for me.

@gaz: I would have expected Cole, or somebody, to have said something like, “Yeah, ha ha asshole, I know it sounds funny but he’s actually studying x about y and helps companies to do this and that with their marketing, blah blah.” As it is, it just sounds like these folks doth protest too much.

@gaz: Yes, yes, you are such a victim, but you have a stiff upper lip. And you were just making a tiny nerd joke! And now we are butthurt!

You realize we can scroll up to the top of thread, and that your comment isn’t invisible?

You weren’t ripping nerdy video game players, despite your pathetic attempt to climb up on the cross. Rather, you trashed this professor as having a pathetic career based on your lack of understanding of his study.

Your nephew would be a nightmare partner for a lot of people! But then, so would I. :)

But if he finds someone who shares his interests, and is not so devoted to his particular obsession (and we all have our particular obsessions!) that it prevents him from treating a particular partner well or holding down a job or what not, then he’ll do fine.

All hobbies have their downside. Someone who never does anything but play video games would have a hard time staying in good shape or holding down a job. On the flip side, someone who does nothing but work out might be stunningly dull and stupid even if he/she does have a smoking body.

Everything in moderation, including moderation.

I think we agree overall.

Obsessing too much about ANYTHING, and not specifically video games, would be the sort of thing that would make someone bad potential marriage material, not simply an admittedly geeky video game hobby that hasn’t become quite as obsessive of a mainstream hobby as someone obsessing over their fantasy football league or what not.

@taylormattd: Hell, I am not a gamer. I just think that pure research can have value in and of itself. In addition, it can often have unexpected practical applications. As a result, I don’t really give much of a fuck about why people are researching something, as long as they are doing a decent job of it. But I am just a lawyer, so what do I know.

@gwangung: Oh for fuck’s sake, if I were to tell people I was an associate professor at a major university focusing my research on blackjack or bubblegum or the sex life of horseflies I’D EXPECT A LAUGH, followed by “So what does that entail, anyway?” Hell, that was pretty much the usual reaction I’d get when I’d tell people in and around Chicago that I was working on a master’s degree in Canadian studies. BFD; it would get the conversation started. If my reaction had been the reactions of many of you in this thread, I would have ended up alienating many and educating none.

Hi. My name is Gaz. I have no understanding of the concept of basic research, and, in fact, wingnutesque disdain for it. I also have no understanding of research design or methodology. I’ll prove that by asking for someone to explain the reason for a study in a call for participants.

Then, when pointed out what a jackass I am, I will pollute the thread with repeated comments proving what a douchebag I am, by using words like “butthurt.”

The next time I want some research opinions or expertise from you, Gaz, I’ll come knock the fucking burgers out of your hand while you do your shift at McD’s.

Get over yourself. You’d think I just called your mother a cun7 and advocated burning down every institution of higher learning or something, instead of the relatively lighthearted dig I made at this study. Christ on a stick. I get it. You think I’m a moran. I think you are taking the whole fucking thing WAAAY to goddamned personally.

Since everyone seems to be repeating themselves on this thread, it’s become boring. Plus there’s a much better FP up (IMNSHO) by Freddie. I’ll be over there.

I want them to do a study on how good a mate is a serious gamer. Probably not very.

Seriously? One advantage to picking a good gamer, as long as they’re young enough, is that they’re very trainable. Explain your needs in simple language, set up a joint list of non-negotiables, and they will meet your specs or cripple themselves trying. Loyalty and task devotion, gamerz they has it.

It won’t work if you’re lookng for a partner who will intuit your every whim and/or keep you on tenterhooks wondering what his next romantical maneuver will be. But if you hate surprises, and don’t mind making allowances for specific quirks (as a gamer will make allowances for your quirks, and yes you have them), gamers make excellent long-term partners.

Of course, I’m prejudiced, since I knew the Spousal Unit was a dedicated (hexcard, dice & pencil) gamer when we got involved thirty years ago. And, no, I am so very not a gamer myself — after the first time he killed off my new D&D character, which was approximately 15 minutes after I’d started playing, we agreed that he could FRP while I fanzined and we’d both be happier separately than if we forced ourselves to “share”. But I know lots of other people, of both sexes, who can attest that a gamer can be a worthy partner over the long term.

Hey Nick! Best of luck with the research. I fully support it. But for fuck’s sake, it is “all data we collect ARE…” You can collect data on gaming or the sex lives of wingnuts or any number of rare or seemingly insignificant events, but please remember that data are plural. When you want to use the d-word, temporarily replace it with ‘numbers’ and adjust accordingly. People who know the difference notice and think less of you when you use it incorrectly. People who don’t know the difference, don’t write snarky comments saying, “heydumbass, it’s data is.”

I usually don’t even try to get into a conversation with anti-science nutcases like gaz, but I’ll say this much…

If you actually were concerned with whether the study had any value, it wouldn’t be THAT FREAKING HARD to figure it out. Instead, you’re just spewing knee-jerk hysteria “OMG THIS MAKES NO SENSE IT’S DUMB BECAUSE I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT!!1!”

About ten seconds of thought might bring up relevant and meaningful areas of inquiry like…cognitive studies (LOOK IT UP if you don’t know wtf that is); communication patterns; social network patterns; learning theory; visual pattern recognition; artificial intelligence…it wouldn’t be real hard to continue the list. But I don’t think you’re actually interested in that. You want the study’s main investigator to lay it out for you so you can continue to spew.

Add to that the fact that MMO gaming is a multi-billion (yes, ‘b’ for ‘billion’) dollar international industry and there is another, separate set of reasons that one might study it.

God damn I am so sick of the anti-science poison that’s seeping deeper and deeper into this country. Really sick of it. Before we know it they’ll be telling our kids they can’t take science classes or ‘non-practical’ courses like literature. Wait. That’s already happening.

More than twenty-five years of bliss here, both marital and gaming. My wife plays too. You should see it when we play TF2 with our kids. My wife plays a mean pyro and a great medic, I prefer solly, demo or heavy.

So maybe after eighty-some odd comments of a number of people flinging shit around for the sake of flinging shit, maybe it would help to see an example of why studying video games isn’t as stupid as it might initially sound.

The short of it is applying aspects of games (video or otherwise) to activities that aren’t otherwise games in order to make these activities more compelling. To accomplish this, you need to understand what makes games fun, and you need to be able to identify it at a very specific level (i.e., it’s not enough to say “Slaughtering all the demons from Hell is fun”).

I’m sure there’s plenty of other research areas and this may not be where Nick is going with his research, but it should be enough to show you that researching video games isn’t some stupid waste of time.

Hi. My name is Gaz. I have no understanding of the concept of basic research, and, in fact, wingnutesque disdain for it. I also have no understanding of research design or methodology. I’ll prove that by asking for someone to explain the reason for a study in a call for participants.

Then, when pointed out what a jackass I am, I will try to play it off as being snarky and everyone being snark-impaired. When that fails I will pollute the thread with repeated comments proving what a douchebag I am, by using words like “butthurt”.

The next time I want some research opinions or expertise from you, Gaz, I’ll come knock the fucking burgers out of your hand while you do your shift at McD’s.

I’d like to know more about the study. I think its an interesting phenomenon, and warrants study. Practically every gamer has anecdotal experience about how they see gaming as an impact/etc.

I could wonder if different games generate different results — the profile of the users/etc. I’m sure there were studies of RPGs a long time ago — it would be interesting to see if there were any correlations.

Having said all that, don’t forget to take some time to stretch and get a little exercise going, just like on long plane flights, gamers.

I actually filled in the study before I read the comments, glad I did.

It looks like he’s going to be focusing on determining whether the stereotypes of the ‘fat lazy disorganized gamer’ are actually true. I think that’s useful knowledge to have, although any survey like this is going to be self-selecting and hard to verify.

I’m an occasionally hardcore MMORPG gamer who’s married to a non-gaming spouse, and it does occasionally cause problems. But I do my dailies and make sure my rep is up to date with the husband faction, and if I start to generate spousal aggro I try to get the kid to tank it for a few minutes while I CC.